Limiting the size of a football signing class in each academic year to 25, down from the current level of 28. The NCAA adopted that SEC-sponsored legislation put forward in 2009. The 25 limit would cover those who sign from Dec. 1 to August 1. The rule now runs from the February signing day to May 31, which allows schools to exceed 28 by enrolling signees before or after those dates. An exception would be made for mid-year enrollees included in the current academic year's initial counters.

I'm not sure I understand this, but I'm pretty sure the odd range of dates—you can't sign until February so what is December doing in there?—is to count JUCOs, who IIRC do sign sometime in December. (As a Michigan fan my knowledge of these things is minimal.)

This would make the LOI cap 25 + early enrollees. The language about "current year's initial counters" is there because early enrollees can count as the year's previous but don't have to. So if you enrolled 25 kids the year before you couldn't sign more than 25, period, because all your early enrollees would have to count as recruits for the current year.

This would appear to create a hard cap of 100 LOIs per four-year cycle, which would cut down on the churn considerably. Half the SEC would have to curtail their issued LOIs—Auburn has averaged 112, Mississippi State 110, etc. The impact on other conferences would be minimal. Iowa State, Kansas State, Oregon State, and West Virginia are the only other BCS schools averaging a significant amount over 25.

Making football signees who attend summer school on athletic aid before the fall semester count against a school's scholarship numbers for that next academic year.

There currently are no limits on how many can attend summer school, which can leave a recruit already on campus to be asked to delay enrollment until January if there's no room. The proposal would go into effect in summer 2012.

AKA The Elliott Porter Rule. No more moving into the dorm, then getting evaluated over the summer, then getting shoved out the door. An obvious step to take after Outside The Lines shredded LSU's practices.

Giving the SEC office more oversight in medical scholarship exemptions to review and determine outcome for cases. A team doctor, trainer and athletic director would need to sign off on each case.

A vague attempt to shut down St. Saban Memorial Hospital. Unknown how that will go, but I'm guessing it will be ineffectual. Having team doctor, trainer, and AD sign off on something beneficial to team doctor, trainer, and AD does not seem like the world's most rigorous check.

What they should do is have the school submit a medical request to the conference that locks in that scholarship, and then the conference tells the football team in question whether they can use that on someone else.

Keeping early enrollees from signing an SEC financial aid agreement until they are enrolled and attend class at the school. Currently, recruits can begin to sign a financial aid agreement after their junior year of high school, which keeps other SEC schools from recruiting them.

This has nothing to do with oversigning, but it's a neat end-around of the LOI system. Given the frequency with which kids in the South decommit it doesn't seem like a widely used one.

In Total

It's better than nothing but short of something that puts student welfare—thanks to Jim Delany the new hotness—above all. If the LOI limit above truly is a hard cap that will immediately curtail some of the worst offenders a significant amount. If one was in place four years ago Alabama would have signed 13 fewer kids, Auburn 19, South Carolina 11, etc.

It's not perfect. Twenty-five is still above what seems like a reasonable good-faith attempt to keep kids in school will see a team sign. Eyeballing the numbers on Oversigning.com, it appears that number is 22 or 23. Getting down to that level would start catching schools that are not actively tossing recruits into the trash heap, though, and starts to impact student welfare from the other direction by reallotting money from scholarship players to fortunate walk-ons.

As for the other two items, the first is an obvious response to the ESPN expose but even if that's the case it shuts down the absolute worst practice going on right now by eliminating the summer-camp tryout business one Les Miles is working. The medical scholarship stuff is too vague to evaluate but there's a decent chance something does come of it if only because other coaches must be hopping mad about this:

Meanwhile, guess who's confused?

"I really don't know what everybody is so up in arms about," Saban said, according to the Birmingham News. "This is something that people have done in college football for a long time and it's not illegal. We have never had a player leave our program who didn't create the issues himself that he made a decision to leave the program."

This is what I keep this Upton Sinclair blockoute around for:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

I knew setting up ctrl+alt+f6 to do that would come in handy some day. Don't make me ctrl+alt+f7 you, Saban. It will be withering.

I can't say I've been following the oversigning issue that closely, but Troy may be oversigning in a fashion different from that of Alabama--or perhaps for a different purpose? Maybe they're not the "worst" at this? From the Go Troy Trojans blog:

Troy has . . . perfected the strategy of "sign and place". There are many players out there who want to continue playing football after high school, but do not have the grades to be admitted into a school. The "sign and place" strategy gives these players a second chance.

Players sign with Troy, but are placed in a Community College for a couple of years. They continue to play football for the Community College, against competition that is usually a cut above the high school level. After a couple of years, if the player has worked hard in the classroom and has the grades, he can sign with a FBS school. Many of the players that originally signed with Troy keep a close relationship with the coaches during their time at the C.C. They are more likely to re-sign with Troy when given the opportunity.

All I can say is THANK GOD the SEC doesn't shoot themselves in the foot like the Big 10 does. Your own "over signing" high and mighty moral rules only serve to make Michigan and the rest of the Big 10 poorly competitive, as exemplified by Bama's crushing of Michigan State 49-7. Everywhere I looked on Michigan's blog sites where fans are lamenting "over signing", you could smell their insane jealousy of the SEC and of Bama/Saban in particular. Why is Saban such a demon to you guys? He's not broken any NCAA rules. Ole Miss has the most over signed this year, but they are not being crucified. If you crunch the numbers over the past 4 years, Auburn even has more "over signed" players than does Alabama. You don't hear the players who leave the team due to medical hardships, the guys who transfer out because they just couldn't compete with the talent level of their college, etc. whining like you guys in the Big 10 are. At least they understand that college football is big business and it isn't a pansy world where "life is fair". They understand very well that if you can't compete, you're going to be on the bench. Should they stay on the bench at their beloved university of choice or, for the good of the team, transfer out for more playing time at a less competitive school? Saban says he hasn't forced any player to move on. He sits down with them and explains reality to them and then gives them options. Rodriguez, I assume, does the same thing. Then the coaches have to try to get enough signees to reach their total tally of 85 scholarship players. Who is hurting the kids more... 1. Saban, who tells kids what their chances of playing really is and offers the injured ones a medical hardship scholarship for a college education or a transfer to another school where they'll likely have a better shot at playing, or 2. Rodriguez who can't even give borderline academic high quality players like Demar Dorsey a shot to play because of dumb self-imposed rules by the Big 10? The trouble with the Big 10 is that you are a bunch of whiners who believe somehow that you are on a higher ethical plain than everybody else!. If you want to sit on your pedestal and cry about other conferences figuring ways to have the best football teams while at the same time being realistic with the kids, just keep at it, for all the rest of the NCAA cares. According to the numbers everywhere I looked, Michigan had 17-19 scholarships available going into recruiting season, but somehow, magically, through transfers and losses of great players like Demar Dorsey because of Michigan’s "academic standards", Rodriguez signed 20 players total. So he "over signed" one to three players, anticipating team members' transfers, drop outs, and academic non-qualifiers. How THE HECK can you whine and complain with a straight face? Rodriguez isn’t somehow better than Saban, he’s just in a conference that has chosen to keep their coaches with one hand tied behind their back? Both coaches "over sign", and have legitimate reasons as to why they do it they way they do. As long as the numbers come out to be 85 scholarships by the beginning of the football season, you're within NCAA regulations, PERIOD. So the SEC over signs more than the Big 10... sooooo what!? Spurrier said that over signing is "helpful" because so many of the players in the state come from underprivileged backgrounds and may not qualify academically. He said the Big Ten, which has curbed over signing for decades, is making a mistake by doing so. "I think that really hurts them a lot," Spurrier said. "They end up giving scholarships to a lot of walk-ons." Keep whining Wolverines... and being irrelevant in competition to boot.

Literally no one on this board, to my knowledge, has expressed envy over Alabama's oversigning. We find it reprehensible. I will freely acknowledge that our not oversigning makes us less competitive. I'm willing to put up with that because it's the ethically correct thing to do.

For you to say you're thankful that the SEC allows oversigning is tantamount to an admission that you don't think the SEC can compete without it. That's pretty pathetic. Play us by the same rules - ones that don't rip kids off.

25 definitely seems off to me, but at least it is more realistic than 28 + 3 paid FAs that seems to be the norm in the SEC. I would actually like to see a system where transfers/medical hardship cases counted on a 1/2 scholarship basis for that year, meaning if a school somehow gets 6 kids to leave school/transfer at the end of the year, the next year they only have 3 scholarships to play with. Now I know that schools suffering from unexpected attrition (um, yeah) would be adversely affected as well, but compared to the unfair advantage some schools enjoy the random 1 or 2-scholarship hit every couple of years at a school seems like a fair price to pay. Plus, it takes out the subjective component of the analysis by the SEC and the schools, parties we've seen employ peculiar logic to these circumstances in the past.

If and when something like the 25 man rule is implemented it will be very easy to see in hindsight what a bunch of liars these guys are. i.e. The number of signees that actually make it to the start of the season will remain the same as before the rule was implemented, medical hardships will go down, as will the number of players who "create the issues himself that he made a decision to leave the program". Thus falsifying their claim that they sign so many guys so that they still have a full class when people start leaving as they "voluntarily" leave the program.

if this is implemented I think we won't see any more changes for a decade. it needs to be harsher right now before it gets passed because once it is passed I dont think the SEC will do anything update it for a good, long while

According to the NCAA's Quick Reference Guide to the NLI, there is a "midyear JC transfer" signing period for football, which most recently ran from Dec. 15, 2010, to Jan. 15, 2011. So the Dec. 1 start for the range of dates would seem to cover the JC signees.

What is the viewpoint from the recruits? Why would you accept an LOI if you know you're signee #30 or so? I get this is why Saban is such a douche about oversigning because he coaches for Alabama and can do whatever he wants to these poor kids, but there has to be some kind of accountability from these kids.

A chance to play at a place like Alabama or anywhere in the SEC is a special oppurtunity, but is it really worth risking the rest of your career for a slim chance at early playing time? And what happens to you when the coach who recruited you and told you that you can be the next big thing signs 30 kids the next year, a few of them the same position as you. Competition for your position is a must, but where is the equity in having to cut a few kids every year or forcing them to go St. Saban Memorial Hopsital.

I feel the scholarship as a one-year renewable contract is the bigger issue in oversigning as there is little accountability in keeping a kid so he can actually get a degree. But I understand that is a much larger issue than oversigning in college athletics.

Young recruits and their parents need to look at the big picture and think about how a coaches previous recruiting practices can affect their career and lives

All I can say is THANK GOD the SEC doesn't shoot themselves in the foot like the Big 10 does. Your own "over signing" high and mighty moral rules only serve to make Michigan and the rest of the Big 10 poorly competitive, as exemplified by Bama's crushing of Michigan State 49-7. Everywhere I looked on Michigan's blog sites where fans are lamenting "over signing", you could smell their insane jealousy of the SEC and of Bama/Saban in particular. Why is Saban such a demon to you guys? He's not broken any NCAA rules. Ole Miss has the most over signed this year, but they are not being crucified. If you crunch the numbers over the past 4 years, Auburn even has more "over signed" players than does Alabama. You don't hear the players who leave the team due to medical hardships, the guys who transfer out because they just couldn't compete with the talent level of their college, etc. whining like you guys in the Big 10 are. At least they understand that college football is big business and it isn't a pansy world where "life is fair". They understand very well that if you can't compete, you're going to be on the bench. Should they stay on the bench at their beloved university of choice or, for the good of the team, transfer out for more playing time at a less competitive school? Saban says he hasn't forced any player to move on. He sits down with them and explains reality to them and then gives them options. Rodriguez, I assume, does the same thing. Then the coaches have to try to get enough signees to reach their total tally of 85 scholarship players. Who is hurting the kids more... 1. Saban, who tells kids what their chances of playing really is and offers the injured ones a medical hardship scholarship for a college education or a transfer to another school where they'll likely have a better shot at playing, or 2. Rodriguez who can't even give borderline academic high quality players like Demar Dorsey a shot to play because of dumb self-imposed rules by the Big 10? The trouble with the Big 10 is that you are a bunch of whiners who believe somehow that you are on a higher ethical plain than everybody else!. If you want to sit on your pedestal and cry about other conferences figuring ways to have the best football teams while at the same time being realistic with the kids, just keep at it, for all the rest of the NCAA cares. According to the numbers everywhere I looked, Michigan had 17-19 scholarships available going into recruiting season, but somehow, magically, through transfers and losses of great players like Demar Dorsey because of Michigan’s "academic standards", Rodriguez signed 20 players total. So he "over signed" one to three players, anticipating team members' transfers, drop outs, and academic non-qualifiers. How THE HECK can you whine and complain with a straight face? Rodriguez isn’t somehow better than Saban, he’s just in a conference that has chosen to keep their coaches with one hand tied behind their back? Both coaches "over sign", and have legitimate reasons as to why they do it they way they do. As long as the numbers come out to be 85 scholarships by the beginning of the football season, you're within NCAA regulations, PERIOD. So the SEC over signs more than the Big 10... sooooo what!? Spurrier said that over signing is "helpful" because so many of the players in the state come from underprivileged backgrounds and may not qualify academically. He said the Big Ten, which has curbed over signing for decades, is making a mistake by doing so. "I think that really hurts them a lot," Spurrier said. "They end up giving scholarships to a lot of walk-ons." Keep whining Wolverines... and being irrelevant in competition to boot.